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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999382">A bed for one person is too cold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMangledSans0508/pseuds/TheMangledSans0508'>TheMangledSans0508</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Chara's LJ Stuff [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lumberjanes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, ripley just likes being near people</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:34:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMangledSans0508/pseuds/TheMangledSans0508</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ripley typically slept beside people. Cosleeping in the literal sense of the word. It just took some time for the campers to experience it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Chara's LJ Stuff [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A bed for one person is too cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Ripley had never liked sleeping alone. At home, she would sleep with her parents, or her Abuela, or one of her sisters (her brothers did not like sharing their beds, or rooms, or even the same house), or sometimes Jonesy would select her to sleep on. That wasn’t to say she didn’t sleep alone at all, she did pretty frequently. She just didn’t prefer it, but she tolerated it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she had first arrived at camp, she had packed her mass of blankets in the shape of a person to lean against because she had not known the other girls well enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That changed after a week-and-a-half.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her first victim was Molly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She did ask first, whether Molly was fully aware of what she was asking is a different conversation. It was late, and cold for a summer night and Ripley had just felt lonely in her bed. So she crept across the floor wearing a blanket like a cap and climbed up Molly’s bed, careful not to make the ladder creak too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Molly?” she asked quietly. Bubbles grumpily chirped at her from Molly’s lap, a presumed racoon insult for disrupting his sleep. Molly shifted underneath him and opened one eye, her pupil searching briefly before finding Ripley’s figure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rip, what are you doing up?” she croaked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it okay if I sleep with you?” Molly sat up slowly, raising an eyebrow at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if there’s enough room…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please? I can be at the foot of the bed,” she begged. Molly sighed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure, just be careful not to crush Bubbles.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t stay at the foot of the bed, although that is where she started. She eventually ended up across Molly’s legs, her own leaning high against the wall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next was April, who Ripley had noticed was awake one night after everyone else had fallen asleep. The flashlight was still visible under the blanket, after all. Instead of potentially waking up Molly, she tugged gently at the blanket. April pulled it down with a slightly annoyed look on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could I sleep with you?” April blinked in confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” she repeated. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could I sleep with you? Like, on your bunk?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, I guess. Just be careful, there’s pens and stuff around here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She did get stabbed in the side by a few pink and purple glitter pens, and when she woke up found she was halfway off the bunk and on the floor while April was splayed across her legs like an anchor holding her down. Molly looked relieved that for the first time in three nights, she had not woken up to a child-racoon fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few nights of bouncing between April and Molly, who had both told her that they didn’t care if she came on their beds as long as she didn’t make a ton of noise, she gave herself a new goal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Get permission to nap on anyone’s bunk, or just get away with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just a silly thing to her, and she was expecting to eventually get told “no, please stay off my bed, it’s three in the morning, I thought you were a gremlin.” (one night, it was actually a gremlin who ended up stealing some shiny things from around the cabin and they had to go hunt it down, but that’s not important) or to get kicked off, but she liked a challenge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So one night instead of going to Molly’s bunk, she slipped down on Mal’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She very carefully manoeuvred herself to be arched around Mal’s feet, not actually touching her so she would not wake her up. Bubbles also snuck down eventually, and Mal was woken up by a child-racoon fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ripley was on the floor, a rabid racoon perched on her shoulder and a small bruise on her side because Mal had been startled awake and accidentally kicked both of them. A flashlight was on her like a spotlight and Ripley could see Mal pinching the bridge of her nose and taking deep breaths to try and calm herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ripley, look, I’m fine with you sleeping on my bed but please, for the love of God, tell me first,” she requested. Ripley nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I sleep on your bed?” Ripley asked innocently. Mal groaned and flopped back, waving a hand up dramatically and accidentally hitting Molly’s bunk, causing her to flinch back in pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, fine, whatever.” Ripley bounded up happily and curled around Mal’s feet again, Bubbles laying on her feet and Mal grumbling about things Ripley couldn’t make out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time Ripley had asked Jo, she had said no. She had looked very uncomfortable when the words came out of her mouth, her fingers starting to wring nervously. She pulled her shirt closer to her body and her blanket higher up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Ripley, I’m sorry, but I don’t-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay!” Ripley smiled at her until Jo smiled back. Then she dropped down onto April’s bunk and slept there instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day, April pulled Ripley aside from the rest of the cabin when they were going to breakfast. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ripley, Jo didn’t say no because she doesn’t like you, she just isn’t comfortable enough yet.” Ripley nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know!” April let of a sigh of relief and patted her shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just wanted to make sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ripley wasn’t always the most in-tune with other people’s emotions, but she could typically read body language, especially of those she was around often. When everyone had first arrived, Jo hadn’t liked being hugged by anyone except April. Sideways hugs were alright, but not full-body hugs. After a week, she slowly started getting more touchy with people, but still preferred not to have people flat against her. She never explained why, but she didn’t need a reason and Ripley understood that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d ask every few nights to see if the answer changed because April had said yet, and Jo would decline politely, and Ripley would go bother someone else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The night after Diane left camp, and Jo had been turned to stone, Ripley asked again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not because that was her intent that night, she had been digging through her blankets searching for Mr Sparkles when she heard the typically calm breathing in the cabin change slightly, instead of slow steady breaths there fast, unstable breathing, and a body lurching forward. She had found Mr Sparkles and snuck up, her eyes peeking just above the mattress to look at Jo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jo was tightly gripping her necklace, her knuckles white and her hand shaking. She took a few seconds to respond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” Ripley perked up. It had not been the answer she was expecting, but she was thrilled by it. She carefully moved over Jo and kneeled at her side, putting her hands out to offer Mr Sparkles to Jo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He helps me when I have nightmares,” she said quietly. Jo looked from her to the unicorn and shook her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, he protects you. I’m okay, Rip. I have someone else to protect me from nightmares.” She ruffled her hair and laid down, facing away from Ripley. She put her back against Jo and clutched Mr Sparkles in her hands. He could protect both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>April was smiling at them in the morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jen was the only one in the Roanoke cabin who had not been woken up by a stealthy twelve-year-old attempting to sleep on her bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ripley couldn’t allow that to stand, she had to share the mild annoyance that would turn to acceptance with Jen too!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On a night that Jen had attempted to stay up in order to prevent “night time shenanigans,” she had fallen asleep on her back with a book on her face. Ripley saw an opportunity and took it. She tucked herself into Jen’s side, just like she used to with her mother, and secretly cheered in her head at the completion of her challenge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sound of the book hitting the floor in the morning was what woke Ripley up because Jen had slammed it down in favour of yelling directly in her ear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was one night where Ripley not only ended up in the wrong bunk but the wrong cabin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had thought she saw a glowing pegasus, which just turned out to be some glow sticks taped to a fallen log by the Digiton cabin in the quest for the “Making the Myth” badge. She wandered back to her cabin half-asleep, ducked into April’s bunk, and put herself around April’s head, noting that her hair was much shorter for some reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The yelling in the morning told her she had ended up in Barney’s bunk, in the Zodiac cabin. Barney thought it was funny, Hes was angry because there was a Roanoke in the Zodiac cabin, Mackenzie didn’t care, Emily was trying to figure out what made Ripley get so turned around that she ended up in Zodiac, and Wren was laughing because nobody had heard Ripley enter beside her, and apparently Ripley had bumped into every single thing in existence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Hes’s ire was turned from Ripley to Wren because she hadn’t woken anyone up when there was an intruder in the cabin, Ripley rushed out to go explain to Jen why she had not been in her bunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ripley also enjoyed being sandwiched between two people since it was so warm, and after Mal and Molly started “forgetting whose bunk was whose” she would worm her way between them after they fell asleep. Besides the initial shock of finding a small child where there was not one before, they didn’t care all that much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Occasionally, April and Jo would be in the same bunk because for a variety of reasons, some of the top being nightmares, conspiring, and goofing off until they were tired, she’d do the same to them. They both seemed unsure about Ripley being there but eventually warmed up to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ripley counted everything as a victory, asides from the Zodiac instance. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was nice sleeping next to people, especially when they were okay with it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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